Chickens in Paradise: A Tribute to Surviving Paradise by dredit92
by CharacterDriven
Summary: Really, you should read this first: /s/10355585/1/Surviving-Paradise I was inspired by dredit92's wonderful story, which out-jack-londons Jack London and really is wonderful. As that story has progressed, I've marveled at its twists, turns, character development & attention to detail & atmosphere. As for Chickens in Paradise, I own nothing except my own words
1. Chapter 1

Day 1: I must be quick. Our cages have been moved from the bucolic safety of our farm, and then moved again, positioned in a dark hole inside of some sort of roiling, pitching wagon. The motion! It's not even fit for ducks.

Day 2: We did a roll call.  
Every single one of us is named Henrietta.

Every

Single

One.

What can it mean?

Day 3: The stress is horrific. Our droppings are everywhere, even on one another. One of the humans came in to feed us. Despite our efforts to remain calm, we are all molting. By the time all our dishes were filled, the big man with blue eyes was coated with a layer of feathers. We laughed and laughed. He did not find it amusing.

Day 4: Henrietta – the sweet little bantam – has lost her feathers altogether and looks quite ready for the soup pot. Better her than me.

Day 5: I don't even know whether it's day 5. For one thing, chickens cannot count, for another thing, we have seen no daylight in who knows how long? Eggs seemed to be laid with some regularity, even in the dark, but our prison rolls and breaks them. Water falls out of our dishes to collect with the steadily filling puddle on the floor. The smell of death lies heavy in the air. Henrietta, Henrietta, Henrietta, and Henrietta are no more.

Day ?: The black box stopped moving with a tremendous crash and groan. Everything tilted to the side. My cage was torn asunder. At first I thought I was free, and then I realized... I have no thumbs. No way to open the door to the outside world. We are trapped, trapped. I pluck my chest feathers to pass the time.

Day ?1: The big fellow with the blue eyes opens the door and peers down at us. Together with the young woman, they wade into the water, and carry our cages out of the black box. They separate the living from the dead. What plans they have for us, I cannot say. I heard they plan to pack the bodies in salt, but no funeral seems forthcoming.

Day ?2: Something smells delicious. I see the man and woman sitting, smiling, eating... something. I begin to cluck with uncontrollable terror. Henrietta!

Day ?3: More pitching, more roiling, more salty water defiling my feathers. Even a goose would not put up with this wet hell. I deserve better. I demand better. And I want some corn. I also find myself craving oyster shells, and wondering whether I'll ever lay eyes on Henrietta again.

Day?7: It has been some time since I've been able to keep this journal, tapping out the symbols with my beak in the black volcanic sand. Who will read it? Who will understand?

Day?8: I watch the man and woman. He reminds me somewhat of a rooster, and she reminds me of that lovely Rhode Island Red who passed me by at the poultry market, back when I was but a chick. Where was she from? What was she doing there? Where did she wind up? Will I ever know?

Day?9: The man is lying on his back and the woman is sitting on his hips. From the noise, I presume that she is attempting to lay an egg, although where they will incubate it, I hesitate even to guess. I thought only penguins did such things.

Day?9: I repeat, chickens cannot count. It seems that they are attempting to lay another egg tonight, although we saw no nest nor other evidence of the one they announced last night. I cannot sleep. Of course, since I am a chicken, they think I am asleep. But I am ever-vigilant, waiting for the moment when I will avenge Henrietta. Either that or beg for the land-snails the woman collects from high branches. Which is the more noble path? The snails are So. Damnably. Delicious. I am weak.

Day 10: Shortly before daybreak, I was seized with an uncontrollable urge to greet the sun by crowing. The man was seized by an uncontrollable urge to throw a shoe at me. I am affronted. I also begin to question my sexuality.

Day 11: It turns out I'm a rooster. Who knew? Also I'm tired of questioning how many days so I'm leaving the question mark out. Because I'm a rooster and I can do whatever the hell I want.

Day 14: The woman is brooding on the man's lap, and he has woven flowers into her strand-like head crest. It is night-time and the moon is full again.

He says "Cheer up, Beckett."  
She says, "Make me."  
He thinks a moment and stretches his beakless lip-things. Humans are such ugly creatures! "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"I dunno, Castle. To get to the other side?"  
"Wrong. Look around you. _There is no road_."

She turns to him, swats him lightly with her wing, and they make a pitiful cackling noise. I suppose it's the closest to clucking these pathetic creatures will ever get.

And now I wonder. I wonder.

_Where is the road? And if I came to it... would I cross it? _


	2. Cargo Cult

From the shadows of the jungle, Henrietta watched the Rodgers family load the other chickens into the tender. Since she had never heard of the gustatory disaster known as "chicken tenders", this didn't alarm her too much.

Her twin sister, Henrietta, had been taken away in the cage with the other chickens. But Henrietta knew that one day she would return, and they would rule the island together with the feral roosters who had escaped a few years before, and gone off to crow in peace on the other side of the island.

When the little boat had disappeared between the two cliff walls, Henrietta turned and flapped her way – gracefully, in her own opinion – into the immense candlenut tree, where she had built a secure nest in a hollow branch, out of reach of the boys' prying fingers. Her clutch of eggs nestled there, still warm from her last sitting. She heard the beginnings of life and movement inside the delicate, creamy-brown shells. It wouldn't be long until she had her children for company, chasing after land snails and scratching for sand fleas at the lagoon beach. It was a good life, and she was happy. She turned the eggs, sat on them for a while to warm them, then flapped back down to the beach.

She looked down at the house the Rodgers family had built. Really, it was a very fine coop, and now that they had gone, it would make a wonderful home for her children, and their children as well.

Soon the Rogers family would return, bearing gifts of corn and other tasty things. Henrietta would, of course, welcome them, and let them take their proper place in the coop. It was only the right thing to do.

She flapped back down to the beach again, and began the laborious process of collecting pebbles.

Three years later, there were 270 chickens on the island. Henrietta finally died, her life's work complete. Through days of labor and years of argument about font selection and spelling, the words:

RIK AN KAT ROGRS  
REMBR BRINNG ME KORN

had been spelled out in stone on the sand. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren would continue to tend the sign long after she was nothing more than food for the ants.

When Rick, Kate, and their four children returned ten years later for a sort of nostalgic reunion, they found the lettering, now embellished with seashells, bits of beach glass and coral, curling tendrils of seaweed, and here and there an artfully placed flower.

Judging by the many chicken footprints, Rick surmised that the birds themselves had made the sign. Kate thought that perhaps another human shipwreck survivor – not that they'd ever seen one – had somehow made their home on the island. They were as mystified by the peculiar humans, who came and looked into their coop, now completely encrusted with chicken guano that had somehow settled into the shape of a castle with cylindrical turrets – as the Rodgers family was by them.

Unfortunately, by then, Henrietta's descendents had no idea what it meant, so they were in no position to explain. Rick, on the other hand, knew a cargo cult when he saw one, and thought it was probably best to get off the island before the chickens figured out that his family wasn't a pantheon of gods.

They took a quick tour, snapped some photos, gathered the last of their things (most now moldering and useless) from behind the waterfall, and left.

From deep in the jungle, a thousand round, golden eyes watched them leave, and then the chickens continued about their day, never knowing that the foundation of their civilization had come and gone like a dream.


End file.
